Friday, November 30, 2007

Glocalization. Redefined.

Just really quickly.

I've been thinking about the roles of globalization, free trade, and consumerism in making for a new kind of person: the bobo. The local is now seemingly the global and the global is now without a glimmer of a doubt the local. The bobo is driving not down the street, highway, driveway when they leave the house, they are moving this way or that way. Following routes that exist on maps on search engines and in colorful GPS control centers in our "wired" SUVs.

A trip to the store is now multiplied and divided many times by the magnificent economies of scale of the globe and then remade by teary-eyed producers in Hollywookie. This rough arithmetic shows us where we are going and where we were. We are living our lives as we know best, but we are all too unaware of where we are.

Looking down at the globe from outer space in 20 years, I'm very sure that astronauts will not see the same glowing blue orb, the earth, that we are accustomed to. What they will see will be a glocal village. Everyone plugged in. Information spreading.

That's the nature of the glocal.

And, I don't think there is any going back.

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About Benjamin

I was located outside of Berlin in a small enclave, which was really quite nice. I lived in a two bedroom flat above a kneipe, which is German for bar. I had a membership to the New York Times Select service, which gave me access to the columnists and the archives. I am a big fan of David Brooks.